Whoopi Goldberg hits back at audience member who called her an 'old broad'
Topics: Celebrity, TV And Film
Jake Massey
Featured Image Credit: ABC
Topics: Celebrity, TV And Film
Whoopi Goldberg clapped back at a heckler who called her an 'old broad' on The View.
The host was just settling in for the show when she was thrown off course by the unexpected interruption from an audience member. Check it out here:
At the top of the programme on Wednesday (18 January), the 67-year-old was distracted by a comment from a woman in the audience, and she responded: "Did you just call me an old broad?"
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The camera then panned to the heckler, who seemed to confirm she made the remark but showed no malice.
The Oscar-winning actor was happy to take ownership of the label, though.
"She said, 'You old broad,' and I was like, 'Hey, it's Wednesday, and I am an old broad, and happy about it," Goldberg said.
She added: "The alternative is not attractive to any of us. We all want to be old broads and old dudes."
If you're trying to come up with some sort of explanation for this seemingly inexplicable jeer, it could be that the audience member was referencing her book Two Old Broads: Stuff You Need to Know That You Didn't Know You Needed to Know, which was written with fellow 'old broad' Dr M.E. Hecht and released in November.
Seems the most likely explanation, doesn't it?
Goldberg was praised for her response to the heckle on the show, but last month people were calling for the show to drop her over comments she made about the Holocaust - and not for the first time.
The first offence occurred after a Tennessee school decided to ban the graphic novel Maus.
Back then, she had been discussing the ban when she said 'the Holocaust isn't about race', describing the Nazi atrocity where millions of Jews were killed as 'man's inhumanity to man'.
Goldberg's words sparked a backlash from The View viewers and Jewish organisations, who explained that the Nazis targeted Jewish people for genocide because they saw them as an 'inferior race'.
She apologised for her comments, saying she should have said that the Holocaust was both about race and man's inhumanity to man.
Citing words from Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League, Goldberg said she was 'sorry for the hurt I have caused' and that 'Jewish people around the world have always had my support'.
Greenblatt later thanked Goldberg for her apology, saying he hoped people could 'work together to combat ignorance of that horrific crime' amidst warnings that antisemitism was reaching 'historic levels'.
During a later appearance on The Late, Late Show With Stephen Colbert, she had said the Nazis had lied and had issues with ethnicity rather than race, for which she received further criticism and again apologised.
ABC responded by suspending her from The View for two weeks, with the actor asked to 'take time to reflect and learn'.
The latest wave of backlash was prompted by an interview Goldberg did with The Times, which was published on Christmas Eve.
In the interview, Goldberg said the Holocaust 'wasn't originally' about race.
She said: "My best friend said, 'Not for nothing is there no box on the census for the Jewish race. So that leads me to believe that we're probably not a race.'"
When the interviewer replied that 'Nazis saw Jews as a race', Goldberg responded: "Yes, but that's the killer, isn't it? The oppressor is telling you what you are. Why are you believing them? They're Nazis. Why believe what they're saying?
"It wasn't originally. Remember who they were killing first. They were not killing racial; they were killing physical.
"They were killing people they considered to be mentally defective. And then they made this decision."
Following the fresh backlash, she released a statement stating that she believes the Holocaust was, in fact, about race.